A COVER FOR TREACHERY

I would like information about will, in the final analysis, acquiesce. Nothing could be further from the truth' (sic)

Mr Orme is hardly qualified to distinguish the 'truth' from its opposite in these matters since he is a representative of a party that has been confusing the working class about its true class interests and about the nature of capitalism for the last 70 years.

"Sham Battle' Nhy shouldn't people interret the trade union leaders' shadow boxing as a 'sham battle'?

The entire TUC history in the 20th century is a history of relentless betrayal and compromise unrelieved by even the slightest gesture of class defiance.

Its philosophy and its method is succinctly summed up in the words of the late Ernest Bevin who said that if he had to repeat 'Black Friday' 1921, over again, he would do And it is fair to say that, as the crisis of British imperalism worsens, the IUC, far from becoming more militant or class-conscious, in fact displays all the anti-socialist features of its senile degeneration in the most insidious way.

Throughout the six years of Labour government, the TUC worked consistently towards a rotten compromise as Wilson, Brown and Castle unrolled their plans for anti-strike laws.

The compromise, finally sealed with the trade union executives conference in June 1969, allowed the government to operate a continuous wage restraint policy in one form or another, and the union chiefs' retreat laid the basis for present Tory plans for even more stringent attacks on the unions. the most basic workers' rights under attack by the employers.

Anyone familiar with the St Helens factories since the events at Lord Pilkington's seven-week strike there earlier this year will know that this is the case.

The strike was only ended after TUC secretary Feather had personally guaranteed there would be no victimizaBut when some of the St Helens men came out on a three-day token strike only two months later, Lord Pilkington was able to sack 600 with impunity. To this day, the TUC has done nothing to honour its pledges to the Pilkington men.

What the union chiefs really think about this situation is best illustrated by the tact that at this year's TUC they elected as their chairman... Lord Cooper, leader of the General and Municipal Workers' Union, whose role in the Pilkington strike aroused working-class anger all over the country.

This is how the TUC 'defends' the right to strike and 'honours' its agreements with How can Orme have the effrontery to claim that these leaders will fight the Tory government when he knows they are retreating not only before Lord Pilkington, but before every other employer in Britain?

There is nothing inconsistent or surprising in the TUC's attitude on these questions.

Drifted Right Ever since it engineered the defeat of the 1926 General Strike and betrayed a generation of workers into unemployment, Toryism and war, the TUC has drifted steadily towards the right and into the embrace of the capitalist state.

What are the Feather-Carr talks' and the TUC's tacit acquiescence before the Tory offensive in the factories but a modern version of the MondTurner talks of 1928—under conditions many times more dangerous for the working class?

The present trade union leaders are the products of almost a century of classcompromise, cemented by the betrayals of seven Labour governments, war-time collaboration in strike-breaking and the defeat and unemployment of the 1930s.

The TUC leadership reflects the defeated past of the working class. That is why it is coming more and more openly into conflict with a strong and confident working class which is determined not to go down in betrayal and defeat again.

But like all reformists, Orme views the class struggle through the distorting mirror of the bureaucracy. It is not the abysmal class-collaboration of the leaders which is to blame, but the workers themselves.

.. the workers, at the present time, are not bloodyminded enough, for many who are fighting for better wages and conditions do not see this fight as the same side of the coin as political action.

'Some of the rank and file on the shop floor do not seé the connection between industrial and political action.

This is the job for the Labour Party: it should be explaining to the workers about who owns industry, how it is controlled and what needs to be done to achieve civilized solution to a capitalist rat-race in which everybody is involved.' Orme is nothing if not brazen.

He sat six years in the parliamentary chamber while this same Labour Party explained LEFTAMP STANLEY ORME Wilson at at the TUC Congress over and over again that workers must accept wage freezing, anti-union laws and unemployment at the dictates of big business.

That was Wilson's 'civilized solution' to the 'capitalist ratrace.

If that was the Labour Party's policy in government, what grounds does Orme have for thinking it will change in opposition?

And this is how Orme 'criticizes' Wilson's government policies:

The Labour conference must extend the TUC decisions and give them a real socialist political interpretation. For instance, it must not equivocate as it has done over the past three (?) years on full IMPORTANT READING The death agony of capitalism Frog trasis of chein--Ihternationa SOfL A yalla bie Haam New PinkeRublications employment and a policy for growth and industrial expansion?

This is the authentic language of opportunism: 600,000 inemployed are reduced to an equivocation' and Orme reiterates the well-worn formula of industrial growth pansion.

Since Orme makes no call for the labour movement to force the Tories to resign, he is presumably hoping that Heath and Carr will put this policy into effect.

Orme waxes tearful about the Labour government's record.

'We set out to attempt to run the mixed economy better than the Tories had. I think the last six years have shown how futile it is to try to persuade the private sector, whether in relation to planning or policy or prices. In fact, at the end of the day, we settled for a policy appealing to the private sector and applying legislation to the trade union movement. This policy must be reversed.' Completely Bankrupt In other words, 'our' policy was completely bankrupt and "we' ended up attacking the working class on behalf of the employers!

An open admission of political bankruptcy.

But Orme is far from wanting to draw the logical conclusions. Instead he wants the mixture as before, but refurbished to look like something 'socialist'.

'The fight inside parliament, he says, 'must be as real as the one which takes place on the shop floor and, in this regard we cannot be hampered by past policies and the past actions of ministers.' It is no use Orme complaing about ministers' "past tions' and trying to extriIte himself that way.

Refused Point-blank When the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League called on the 'left' MPs to fight Wilson during the period of the Labour government, Orme was prominent among the 'lefts' who refused point-blank to demand Wilson's resignation.

And even now, he peddles substantially the same line.

"The message to Harold Wilson from the Labour Party conference must be clear and concise: we want no sham parliamentary battle. The people who lead this fight must believe in the policies which the labour movement will adopt.' There could be no clearer message to workers fighting the Tories about the position Orme intends to adopt.

Now that Wilson's policies have opened the door to Toryism in Britain, Orme and his 'left' parliamentary and trade union friends, backed by the Communist Party, will do their level best to ensure the future of reformism by this kind of bombast.

Tory minister CARR These people are getting ready for another assault on the confidence of the working class.

The old combination of 'left'ism and the parliamentary and trade union treachery is once again being activated.

Workers who want to fight the Tories and the employers for real socialist policies of nationalization and an end to Toryism must reject this political line and campaign inside the trade unions to build a revolutionary alternative on the basis of the policy proclaimed in last Tuesday's That is the policy of